Ponderings Of A Former Mollusk
by MaySoFarAway
Summary: An oddball cannot stay the same forever. A young adult Luna Lovegood idly ponders her evolution.


Hey! Something new. No relations to Romemary and Thyme, this was just a drabble I came up with whilst watching The Virgin Suicides. Luna is always different.

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I used to be so different.

I still am different. We are only more different every passing day to how we were when we were thirteen. Different being relative, of course. I used to have the casual complacent observation of a happy mollusk though. Watching individuals pass in a blur of black school robes, lost in a daze of my own creation. Snorkacks and Frooples and the plastic beads, silver charms and ink doodles all over my hands and wrists. A splotch of seamstress chalk under my chin.

And then suddenly, I had a best friend. I already knew so very much about her, for I am the glass watcher at the end of the Ravenclaw table, between the stuttering Cilla Montgomery and the ever so brooding Hareton Chambers. I watched my future best friend be the social butterfly she grew into, from being a silent, shy little first year along with me. This was a fun thing. Suddenly there was someone to laugh with on crispy autumn afternoons outside on the grounds, our wool skirts swishy itchy and our hair getting blown about. Her bright red and shining, mine dull and lank and dirty blonde. I am so much taller, but she is so much more beautiful. We still look up Charms and the history of Lock Ness together. I think she really does like my weirdness. I almost felt like I was note worthy when we were in a crowd, because the boys were looking at her, and I was right next to her. She never pretends I am not there though, never.

She is a true friend.

I was fifteen when I finally noticed boys that way. I think it was because of Ginny. Before I had been pulled out of my happy, pink-wallpapered mollusk shell, I had simply fancied that boys were to be desired in some far off day, when Heathcliff showed up on my doorstep after a long cold walk over the moors. I would take him in and we would drink hot chocolate and that would be it. But even the slightest bit of time spent in the small crowd of Ginny, Harry and their friends can make a dreamer dream about reality.

Terry Boot came back to school that year divine. I recalled over-hearing a conversation the winter before, between him and Michael Corner, while I was in the common room knitting a scarf for Ginny's Christmas present. Terry's parents were taking him to Monaco over the summer holidays, to get away from "things". Monaco. My mum had taken me there when I was eight. He came back to school in September and something in me lurched so far to the left I tumbled out of my shell and landed face-first in the squishy sand. His skin was tanned, he'd grown at least six inches (finally, a boy in my house taller than I suddenly was), and it only made his eyes all the more blue. I found myself waiting down in the commons just for a glance, and highly irrational that was. He and Lisa Turpin were ever so obviously smitten. Still. He would glance up from his books as he sat in one of our faded blue chairs of threadbareness, and smile at me. I reached up and tucked my limp hair away from my face so harshly I almost scarred the skin behind my ears. I wonder what he is doing now.

My father died the following summer. I walked away from my shell and into the sea, taking great gulps of salt water. Or rather, I seriously pondered it. I never disliked my old life. I never disliked imperfect birthday cakes or the empty half of my father and mother's bed. I never wanted anyone to feel sorry for me, that is not what I do. Still, that was the first time I had ever had the distinct feeling that my heart was breaking.

They say that I am a hero now, now that it is all over. I was right alongside The Boy Who Lived, with my dear friend Ginny and her brothers. We did a good thing, this I know. The man who killed my father is dead. Oh but I miss things. I miss a great many things.

I miss being the quiet, solitary girl at the end of the table, hoping that Terry Boot would look at me again. I stand on the veranda of the house I grew up in, running my hand through the hanging beads and crystals casting rainbows on my white dresses and fringe. I entertain friends and attend their weddings and run the paper in the city, and take tea with Ginny once a week.

I used to be so different. But I do not dislike this life.

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**Authors Notes:** read and review, if you so desire. And eat some daisies! 


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